Pre-Dawn Muggle Madness and More

Since Ms. B.'s folks have reached that age where they need a bit more help from time to time, she heads to Michigan regularly to visit them. Sometimes I go along too, but this week, she made it a solo trip. Her flight out from Greensboro was at 6:00 a.m. yesterday morning, so we had to get ourselves up at 3:30 a.m. to hit the road by 4:00 a.m. We made it to the airport just before 5:00 a.m., and rather than turn right around and drive home, I decided to head eastward from Greensboro and snag a handful of geocaches.

My first stop was Burlington, a few miles east of Greensboro, where there is a newish Wherigo cache, courtesy of friend Ranger Fox. Despite the 25º-degree temp, I hoped  I might make my way through the stages without becoming an icicle. But after fifteen minutes, I still had a pretty good way to go, and even though I was reasonably bundled up, the chill and the brisk breeze convinced me that trying again at a later (warmer) time might be more prudent.

However, stopping here offered me yet another chance to experience the single-most inevitable geocaching experience of geocaching experiences: the fooking muggle sitting in his fooking car. At 5:15 in the fooking a.m., a muggle (one of the non-geocaching persuasion) drives into this otherwise totally deserted parking lot, parks his fooking vehicle, and proceeds to fooking sit while I'm going from stage to stage. It never fails when there is an otherwise totally deserted parking, does it? In this case, not necessarily a complication, since muggles will be present at this location on a regular basis. However, under these circumstances, it just reinforces the notion that there is no empty parking lot into which a muggle won't insinuate himself at precisely the wrong time. Go fooking figure.

From there, I headed farther east and snagged a handful of caches. My favorite was one in the woods along the Eno River, just east of Efland, NC. A lovely location just downriver from a dam, which was visible in the distance from the cache site. So despite the pre-dawn muggle madness, I enjoyed myself no end.

A now a week of bachelorhood, writing, and, hopefully, more geocaching.

Sunrise is imminent...